Demo Locks are countered by, wait for, Destro Locks. Actually, not really countered, but Destro has the upper hand. Rain of Fire on their imps generates enough embers to make it possible to heal through their burst and after that the Destro Lock will cruise to an easy victory. I don't think any other class can actually beat Demo Locks 1v1 given equal skill and gear.

A skilled unholy dk has no counter as far as I have seen. The problem is though it takes a lot of practice to be good at unholy and still a fair bit of practice to be decent. I have watched people duel in front of org and sw and seen a few unholy dks. You can tell the fotm rollers apart easily.

Originally Posted by Validity

If rogues become shit, all they can become is a different type of shit.

demonology locks are functionally immune to magic CC (via Imp dispels): you can't fear them, silence them, poly them, you can't magic-stun them - and once you run out of all that - your dots get constantly dispelled off them.

lol!! i dont play demo often but when i do.. its with fel imp :/

anyways demo is pretty nuts for duels i agree. Demo is helped alot by the fact that alot people dont know how to play against it though.

Lets see, BM hunters pretty obliterate Demo locks with their initial burst and cc chain. Unless the Demo lock is speced into Dark Bargain, it's pretty much game over if the hunter gets the opener.
Sub rogues have little problems as well and same goes for monks and death knights due their high amount of anti-caster abilities. Both Affliction and Destruction warlocks win it as well due having the same tools and being able to outlast demonology. Warriors have very good chances as well as long as the warlock doesn't have his gateway out LoS as the Demo Lock has to save his biggest burst till the end and the warrior has enough mobility to stick on the lock long enough.
Shadow priests do fine as well if they can keep their dots up and counter-act in time. (Imp can be a bitch, but so can VT be, it's a 1/3 chance your silences/fears/etc will get dispelled).

Honestly, Demo warlocks are strong when it comes to dueling where they can fully prepare against what they'll be fighting, however, after all the nerfs they are really not that strong. I think many people are completely overestimating Demonology or haven't done a single duel after all the nerfs.

That being said, all of this only counts for duels, in any other form of 1v1 such as in battlegrounds and world PvP, Demonology is a lot weaker due not having gateways and portal set up, not using the right pet for a certain class, etc. Purely looking at duels is just silly as that's really the minority of 1v1 going on.

pretty sure you main a demo warlock then, pretty biased opinion :/ but OT 1v1 isnt balanced and some class specs > other class specs 1v1 different for all :P but i'd say a blood DK is pretty unkillable in a duel

I'm gibbing blood DKs 1v1 in CTF RBGs on my rogue (unless they scramble a healer to save him), but I guess that's with battle fatigue and a reluctance on the DKs part to blow all their defensive CDs perhaps.

Demo lock survivability is seen as OP because nobody ever thinks of gradually using their cooldowns againt them. Instead, everyone pops all of their burst in one big batch, which is countered by a warlock's defensive CD stacking (really ridiculous, I know). However, if a player would ever use burst gradually, then you'd see the lock melting away slowly: Warlocks have the least passive defense between all casters, thus forcing them to use any defensive ability against any burst ability. When stacked together, they are extremely powerful, yet less effective by themselves. So, if you'd just use ability after ability, you'd see the lock forcing himself to use some of his defensive CDs, which are his only option. And don't go all "I can't wait that long to kill him", because demo and destro warlocks have the most ramp-up in the game, especially in 1v1.
I do agree however that imps are completely sick, would rather see them disappear from PvP to be honest, they're less counterable than stampede.

Also, I don't see how a BM hunter would ever lose to a demo lock, which's damage lies solely in combining Dark Soul with meta and imps. Double Deterrence beats that any day of the week. If you've ever been in a 2v2 against a hunter/healer for example, you'd know there's no killing him unless he's used his burst with Readiness and have forced him to Deterrence.

pretty sure you main a demo warlock then, pretty biased opinion :/ but OT 1v1 isnt balanced and some class specs > other class specs 1v1 different for all :P but i'd say a blood DK is pretty unkillable in a duel

Actually I play Destruction / Affliction, I hate demonology. I play monk and priests as well, with neither of them I have any problems with Demo locks, as they are fairly easy to counter if you know what to react to.
I'm staying with my call that Demonology is anything but OP in duels, people just have no idea how to counter them or are still talking about the 5.1 glory days with double port and 2shotting with chaos wave, etc...

As for Blood Dks, they are actually pretty useless in duels against anything that can either kite or can cripple healing badly ( Dks with NS for example).

As for Blood Dks, they are actually pretty useless in duels against anything that can either kite or can cripple healing badly ( Dks with NS for example).

A Blood DK with Death's Advance has a chance to beat anything in a duel. You can't kite a Blood DK as if it were Cataclysm where the mobility was only tied to the Unholy and Frost trees. The only thing I can think that can kite a Blood DK is a Retribution Paladin using emancipate against chains and hand of freedom while specced into long arm of the law. But if the Blood DK is specced into Conversion, the duel will never end.

Of course you can't just go and outrun a blood DK all day long, however with the help of cc many classes can actually prevent a blood DK from attacking them.
Mages can keep blinking away while using DF and nova, locks have gateway, portal and fears, druids have travelform, hunters can scatter, trap, disengage, etc,....

Demo lock and BM hunter. The only thing that should beat those two is another Demo Lock or BM hunter. Funny how the two heaviest pet classes are the top.

Just a side thing i found out while dueling a few demo locks, Imps usually comprise of about 40% of the demo locks damage.

You completely left out unholy dks, the other extra heavy pet class, prolly rapes demo locks and bm hunters if played right. Of course its hard to meet an unholy dk, who is playing his class right, though.
But i think most people know by now, how defensive and tanky the unholy dk is in pvp, how high his pressure is with dots up and transformed pet + gargoyle and how impossible it is to prevent all that damage.(thasts the best part!).

Of course you can't just go and outrun a blood DK all day long, however with the help of cc many classes can actually prevent a blood DK from attacking them.
Mages can keep blinking away while using DF and nova, locks have gateway, portal and fears, druids have travelform, hunters can scatter, trap, disengage, etc,....

Yeah and Blood has Death Grip, Dark Simulacrum, Ice of Chains, Strangulate, Lichborne, Anti Magic Shell and Desecrated Ground to close the gap or remove CC's. You act as if a kited Blood DK can't heal when he's not on a target either.

Blood doesn't need 100% uptime to stay alive. As long as the enemy caster keeps feeding the DK runic power by kiting or using CC's, he won't die thanks to Conversion. If somehow he doesn't have runic power, the DK still has Lichborne, Vampric Blood and Rune Tap to stay alive long enough to get runic power or to close the gap and use death strike. Didn't even mention Icebound Fortitude which is basically the icing on the cake for Blood. Its a 50% reduction that lasts 12 seconds and is immune to stuns that is only on a 3 minute cool down.

Have fun trying to kill that in a 1v1 setting. The fortunate thing is that most people who play Blood DK's or any Prot class in pvp are usually awful backpedaling players. I'm guessing this is where the misconception of "Blood DK's have bad mobility" stems from. Bad Blood DK's have bad mobility, yes. I've beaten bad Blood DK's on my Arms Warrior for Christ's sake.

Bad Blood DK's don't count as beating real Blood DK's in a 1v1 situation though. Good Blood DK's which (I know only exist on a full moon when the planets perfectly aline), are invincible to any class in a 1v1 setting and sometimes even invincible in a 1v2 situation depending on the composition of the team of two.

Good Blood DK's which (I know only exist on a full moon when the planets perfectly aline), are invincible to any class in a 1v1 setting and sometimes even invincible in a 1v2 situation depending on the composition of the team of two.